


To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Sebastian Stan

by sidnihoudini



Series: Together Together [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Bittersweet, Codependency, F/M, M/M, Mommy Issues, Passivity as a Coping Mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: What he wants to say is: I met him at the audition. It was just a chemistry read, and I was just a kid, and I had no idea what I was getting into. I went into it knowing I was going to say no. He grinned at me and shook my hand and I never knew what to do with that. We’ve been shaking hands and grinning at each other for ten years and I still don’t know what to do with that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! You are either going to love this story or hate it. Let me explain.
> 
> This is the first half of a two-part series between myself and Genie (aka [@homicidalbrunette](http://homicidalbrunette.tumblr.com/tagged/get%20on%20top).) The series covers the last couple of months from two POVs: Chris’s, and Seb’s. This is not [Fork and Knife](http://archiveofourown.org/series/471925). This is not [I’m Your Man](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10474293). This is its own universe set far, far away from anything we’ve previously written.
> 
> Now, [we used a timeline we assembled based on reality](https://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com/post/169198860195/together-together-series-timeline) (appearances, dates, times, days, locations, etc) but this story IS NOT REAL. We don’t know shit. This is the product of both of our imaginations, and nothing more. If you're interested in the timeline, [that can be found here](https://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com/post/169198860195/together-together-series-timeline).
> 
> If you hate Homewrecker, realistic (could be considered sad) endings, or poking too close to a nerve, I recommend you do not read this. If you do not want to read about Chris or Seb with other people (Jenny and Xavier), do not read this. This story does not present a relationship of a romantic or sexual nature between Jenny and Chris, but it does between Xavier and Seb.
> 
> I welcome your comments and feedback on this story - I always do - but I won’t post any tumblr asks that demean Jenny, Xavier, or Genie, and I won’t respond to any Ao3 comments of the same nature. That said, I’d love to hear your feedback or thoughts on this story.
> 
> Also, I’m going to steal a chunk of Genie’s author’s note and include it here: _This can be read as a moment in their relationship which is ultimately end game as well considering that we don’t know what will happen in the future._ Because, seriously. Who knows what 2018 will bring?
> 
> This story doesn’t mean that I dislike Chris or Seb or Evanstan, and that I won’t write them in the future. Because I do, and I will. This is just what made my creative dick hard at this moment.
> 
> If you’re unfamiliar with Xavier, I recommend watching [this episode](https://vk.com/video4615877_171505488), or [any of his interviews on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM9psRAaHmE). You can also check out [my “brat” tag](http://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com/tagged/brat). If you only know of Jenny through the Chris stans on tumblr and Twitter, I recommend watching [this interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI3rumD76zo) or [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Rf7pABnpU). Just... stay away from her Twitter. It’s not a good look.
> 
> Because these stories cover a wide span of time, To Wong Foo will be broken into two portions: the shorter “intro” to the story I’ve posted today, and then the majority and conclusion, which will be posted AFTER [The Death and Life of Sebastian Stan](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13234761).
> 
> Lastly my working title for this was “the bear and his burden” and that’s really all you gotta know about that.

_“It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. You know what I mean? It's awfully difficult.”_

\-- Little Edie, Grey Gardens

*

Chris rests both hands on the counter.

“No mustard,” he says, but then he sees that the lady already has a knife in her hand on its way to the mustard jar. He opens his mouth. “Uh. That’s fine.”

She gives him a look over the glass case.

“It’s fine.” He scratches the back of his neck and then bobs his head uselessly. “Yeah, mustard.”

*

The sandwich goes in a bag and Chris holds the bag by its handle as he walks back to his car.

It’s a rental because Atlanta isn’t a place where permanent things live. He stands outside for a minute, fumbling through his key ring for the right fob, and reaches to grab his phone with his free hand when it starts to vibrate against his thigh.

_I’ll be there in threeeeee days, Jenny says. Get the BEST couch pillows ready for me please!!!_

Chris reads the message again. He sets his sandwich bag on the passenger seat, and sticks the keys in the ignition.

*

He and Jenny have a complicated relationship.

The day Chris met her, she laughed and inhaled a piece of popcorn the wrong way and then they spent the next five minutes cracking up as he alternated between patting her on the back and asking if she was okay. 

Fifteen minutes later, they were reading lines together and smiling.

*

The dog meets him at the front door.

“Hi bud,” he says, trying to lever himself into the hallway. “Hi, pal.”

Dodger jumps on him and runs for his toy and carries it back and prances around Chris’s feet, happy to see him even though Chris only left twenty minutes ago. Last time Chris left Dodger in his car in the parking lot, a stranger yelled at him through his window and he had anxiety for three days waiting for it to turn up on Twitter.

He kicks off his shoes and walks through to the living room.

When his assistant emailed him a link to this place in March, Chris liked it. He flicked through all nine photos on the listing, and saw potential in every single one of them: the backyard where they could hang out with the dog and use the fire pit, the living room with the big couch they could both fit on for once, the big steam shower in the bathroom that shoots water at you from every direction.

Seb would love that thing.

He sits down on the couch, and puts his sandwich on the coffee table. His stomach hurts now. He thought he was hungry but really it turns out he’s just a little bit sad. He pushes the dog’s nose away from his sandwich bag, and reaches for the half a beer he left on his way out.

 _You’re gonna love it,_ Chris texts back. _I got a pillow with your name on it. Not literally._

*

Things will be better when she gets here.

*

His mom assures him he’s done nothing wrong.

That evening, he lays on the couch with his phone pressed to one ear, and watches ESPN on mute. He leaves his free hand buried in the fur at the back of Dodger’s neck, and puts his phone face down on his chest whenever he needs to take a sip of his beer.

“I am lonely,” he agrees. He listens for a second. “No, I don’t want Scott to come.”

On TV, they run through a reel of basketball highlights from this afternoon.

*

He’s on set all day the next day, and that’s fine because Seb isn’t.

His chair is, though. Chris stares at the white stitching. _BUCKY BARNES._ Someone thought it would be cute to stick a little red star sticker on there, too, and it is. Chris rubs his thumb over the edge of it, where one of its points is starting to curl away from the canvas.

“Hey sailor,” Scarlett smirks. 

Chris jerks his hand away from the chair like a kid in a cookie jar.

“Hi.” He watches as she drags her own chair from the other side of Sebastian’s, and lets its arm flop against Chris’s. The fabric barely pulls taut as she perches herself on the edge of the seat, and narrows her eyes. Chris stares back. “What?”

Scarlett has known him for a very long time. There isn’t much she doesn’t know.

“You’re making bad decisions again,” she laments, frowning.

*

It’s not that Chris is making bad decisions.

Chris is just… making no decisions. There is a distinct absence, a void where the responsibility, the ownership of choice, should be. If Chris sits still long enough, people will rebuild around him. If Chris leans into the way the cards have already begun to fall, he’ll still be around when the time comes to get dealt back in.

*

Jenny throws her arms around his neck and squeals into the side of his head.

“Hi,” he laughs, catching her weight. Her hair gets in his mouth. “Come in.” He sets her back down on the floor, and tries to knee Dodger away. “Pal, hey.”

“It’s okay.” Jenny drops all her bags right there on the floor and kneels. “I missed you, little guy. You’re soft!”

Chris rubs the back of his neck and watches as Jenny smoothes both hands over Dodger’s head, along his ears and then down to adjust the collar around his neck. He doesn’t know what to do so he rights her suitcase ‘til it’s back on its wheels.

“I don’t have- I haven’t been shopping, or anything.” He feels kind of dumb now. He invited her to stay with him while she’s working down here, and he doesn’t even have food. The only thing that he’s put in the fridge is beer.

She smiles up at him and pushes up from her knees.

“Hey, I don’t mind.” Her hand is small and very sure when she touches his arm. “We’ll get something cool for dinner, right? Pizza?”

Chris looks at her face and feels his shoulders get all tight, but then he exhales so loud and hard and obvious it’s like he hasn’t taken a breath in a week. He smiles back, mouth crooked, and nods.

“Pizza,” he says, joking a little bit. “I don’t know if I’m allowed that.”

She leans in close and lowers her voice. “I won’t say anything if you don’t.”

“Okay.” Now he’s really smiling. He laughs. “Okay, that sounds good.”

*

There’s a writer from a magazine on set today.

She thinks Chris is her friend.

“So,” she smiles, giving him a sly look. “How did you and Jenny meet?”

Chris needs to get better at that.

He glances over at his publicist, but she’s on the phone with her back turned to them, one finger plugged in her ear. He looks back to the writer, and offers up a smile while he buys time.

They met when Chris was still under the assumption that he’d be directing the movie. That’s when they met. It was a production meeting. He made jokes and she laughed, and then he declined the offer to eat some of her popcorn.

“It’s not homemade,” she’d told him, and then her whole face changed as he laughed at her, tickled by the way she just _said things._ “I’m not that kind of lady!”

He doesn’t know how to say that to this interviewer, because that part doesn’t matter. The parts that matter are the ones he can’t articulate.

What he wants to say is: I met him at the audition. It was just a chemistry read, and I was just a kid, and I had no idea what I was getting into. I went into it knowing I was going to say no. He grinned at me and shook my hand and I never knew what to do with that. We’ve been shaking hands and grinning at each other for ten years and I still don’t know what to do with that.

“Ahh, I try not to go there in these kinds of things,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

*

They were doing the long-distance thing while Chris was in Africa.

He stares at himself in the mirror as he brushes his teeth. He’s a little buzzed but he always remembers to brush his teeth. He opens his mouth wide to get at his back molars.

He really wasn’t very nice to Sebastian.

In the mirror, he watches as his eyes get wet. He leans forward and spits into the sink.

“Look at this weird thing,” Jenny says. All of a sudden she’s in the bathroom doorway, wearing a pair of short denim overalls with no shirt underneath. “I got it at the airport.”

She demonstrates - something - Chris can’t figure out what it is right away. He wipes his eye with the back of one hand and sticks his toothbrush back into the cup that was already on the sink when he moved in.

“It’s a loop.” She laughs, and demonstrates by loosely wrapping the long piece of fabric around her face. It covers her eyes and tucks over her ears. “Isn’t it so dumb and cool?”

Chris laughs as she looks at him like her eyes aren’t covered with swirly fabric.

He hits the bathroom light, and steps around her.

“I think you’re going to be on Hoarders one day.” He scratches his belly and picks his beer bottle up off the side table by looping one finger around the neck. It’s empty. He looks over his shoulder at her, and adds, “And also maybe that one where the guy fucks his car.”

Jenny laughs and balls up her airplane face cover-er, and throws it at him.

“You’re very mean!” He laughs and knocks the fabric away. “I’m not a car fucker!”

Cracking up, he ducks through the doorway and out into the hall.

*

When he was in Africa, things were different.

Sometimes he deletes emails before he reads them, but he still has all of the text messages Sebastian sent. He looks at them when he feels lonely. As he’s getting ready for bed, flipping between the call sheet for tomorrow (Chris, Scarlett, Sebastian, Chadwick) and tonight’s final Georgia Tech score (31-17), he scrolls back to July.

_> Well I just got into a car that may or may not actually be my Uber so I’m gonna have to get back to you on that. I miss you._

Jenny climbs over him on her way down to the mattress.

_> > Seb!! Did you really get in the wrong car?_

They were going to make things work. They spent two months talking about all of the things they were going to do when Chris got home. Seb sent him a link to a projector that would be cool to put in the living room. They were going to marathon Predator.

_> The driver was all surprised when I opened the door but it turns out it is the right one. _

_> I guess I just have a suspicious face. _

_> Or Anaheim has something against guys who wear boots that match their jacket._

_> :)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you proceed to chapter 2, please check out [The Death and Life of Sebastian Stan](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13234761) :) Once you've read that, come back here and continue.
> 
> PS: If you're on the fence about reading something that isn't explicit Evanstan, please consider letting [Genie's story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13234761) be your sherpa up the mountain of gayness. It's beautiful. It's so lovingly crafted. Her version of Seb will make you wanna die in the good way. And Xavier is INCREDIBLE.


	2. Chapter 2

Chris sighs as he looks over the script.

He didn’t know they were shooting this scene today. Fuck. He loosens the straps on his chest and flops back in his chair, skimming the lines again. Are these new? He looks around, trying to see if there’s a PA in immediate sight.

The only other person in here is Hemsworth, picking over the snack table.

“These script changes are going to kill me, man,” he grumps, yanking down one of the big black capes that hang in a row by every tent entrance and exit.

As he heads out, towards the block of cast and crew trailers, he wraps the cape around his shoulders. If he accidentally got photographed in this outfit, he’s pretty sure he’d be taken out back and shot.

Grumpy, he stomps over to his trailer first, and loses the top portion of Cap’s uniform. Then he heads next door to Sebastian’s.

It’s possible Seb hasn’t even arrived yet. Chris bounces up the three steps that lead to the door on the side of Seb - SEBASTIAN STAN’s - trailer, and unclicks the little camper handle. He didn’t see Seb in the break tent, and he didn’t see Seb in hair and makeup, so it’s very possible that-

Chris is inside the trailer before he realizes what’s going on. His body stops on a dime.

“Who.” He pauses, and looks back over his shoulder. He turns back. “Is this… where’s Seb?”

A guy - not one of Seb’s usual friends, not someone who Chris has seen before, or met in passing, or even recognizes from a photo - is sprawled out across the sofa.

“He’s indisposed.” Chris instantly recognizes that sweater. “Can I take a message?”

The lippy smirk on his face tells Chris that he is not really offering to be kind. Chris opens his mouth. This guy - this kid’s - hair is curly and fluffy and bleached yellow. He raises both eyebrows at Chris, waiting. He pouts.

“I- no.” Chris pats himself down like he’s looking for his phone, but these are Steve’s pants. “I- sorry. Who are you?”

“Xavier.” He smiles and it’s heartbreaking.

Chris’s gaze darts around the immediate area, from the spot where Sebastian’s backpack is sitting on the ground in front of the television unit, to the two cups of coffee resting handle to handle on the small formica counter. Beside them, a pack of cigarettes - a brand Chris doesn’t recognize - and a lighter.

“Okay.” The casual intimacy of Xavier’s body and the backpack and the coffee cups and the pack of cigarettes are making Chris’s heart beat fast. He runs a hand over his head. “I’ll come back.”

He practically breaks the door down lest he spend one more second on this side of knowing.

*

The collar on this shirt is choking him.

He grimaces and yanks at it, caught between wiping at his wet eyes and trying to keep the script open to the page he’s reading. On the far end of the trailer, he’s got the flatscreen on the wall turned to the weather station. It’s on mute.

He doesn’t want to be alone.

“Fuck,” he gasps, jerking up out of his seat.

There’s a short, sharp knock at the door. Polite. Formal.

“Sorry to interrupt.” The PA sticks her head in the door without walking up the steps. “They’re ready for you on set.”

*

Bucky is standing right in front of him, but for the first time in Chris’s life, all he can see is Seb.

He opens his mouth and the line is gone.

“Sorry.” The apology is a knee jerk reaction. He shakes his head and sucks his lips into his mouth as Seb studies him, eyes bright. Curious. Chris inhales through his nose - sharp - and goes to run a hand through his hair before remembering that it isn’t his. He shakes his hand out instead, nervous energy. Joe is looking at him funny. “I’m sorry, go again.”

This isn’t Chris Evans. Chris Evans knocks stunt work out on his first try, and pops himself up and over nine foot tall walls effortlessly. Chris Evans is good at the things he’s good at.

“Reset,” Joe calls. Chris sees movement behind the camera, but can’t make out what it is.

He turns back to his mark and tilts his head left, right, trying to work the kinks out. God, please let him one day work the kinks out.

*

It takes Chris so long to get the scene they have to break late for lunch.

*

This house is a maze.

In the past, he’d stuck to smaller rentals. Simple, single dwellers. Easy. This time-

The sun is biting as Chris yanks on the plantation shutter cord, irritated. Now all of these extra rooms, they embarrass him. He thinks about what he was planning to do when he asked his assistant to find him a family home: something suitable for lots of guests. He thinks about how his mind was on Christmas, the holidays, shooting late.

He thinks about how short sighted all of that was. And then he feels it pop. The dread turns him inside out like ice, and he retaliates against it. Chris kicks the closest thing - a three foot tall, stuffed French giraffe - and watches as it careens into the wall.

Fuck this house. Fuck this house, and fuck this room he was going to put his nephews in on Christmas Eve, and fuck the dining room off the kitchen he thought would work well for a family dinner.

Fuck Seb, and fuck that guy in his trailer, and fuck the lines Chris couldn’t learn.

He knows he’s about to cry. He rubs a rough hand over his eyes, and, feeling bad, stops to prop the giraffe back up. So what if he didn’t respond to some of Seb’s messages? That was, he was, none of that- he didn’t mean anything by that. Chris was busy. Chris was dealing with stuff. He was in contract negotiations, and one of his closest friends died, and he worked hard in Africa.

Was it so bad to spend time at home, alone? He’d phoned. He’d checked in. He’d said his “congratulations.”

Chris, antsy, walks back out into the hallway. He hears Jenny coming in through the front door.

“Are you home?” she calls, making a high whine in her throat when her keys get stuck in the lock. “Christopher, helloooooo?”

Wiping at his face, Chris blinks quickly, and clears his throat.

*

Chris knows something is up when he gets to work the next day, and there’s a group congregated around one of the break tables.

“This seems foreboding,” he greets, walking up behind Mackie.

At the sound of Chris’s voice, Mackie - already laughing - turns and reaches out, eyebrows popping up as he gets a hand on Chris’s shoulder and pulls him in.

Maybe it’s someone’s birthday? Chris has no idea what’s going on. He adjusts the brim of his hat that Mackie knocked a little bit, and looks at Scarlett, who is very suddenly standing in front of him. She’s grinning.

“Oh good morning!” She’s got that funny voice on that she uses when she talks to her kid. Chris, still confused, looks beyond her, and feels his stomach bottom out. Seb is sitting on the other side of the table, laughing but embarrassed. “This is a copy of Variety, if you were wondering.”

Chris is lost. Mackie starts looking around, and asks, “Where’s Robert?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, guys, come on,” Seb tries.

Eyebrows knotting, Chris looks him over. Part of Chris will always try to consolidate Seb’s ongoing presence in his life: he’s safe, he’s here, he’s not close enough to touch.

“They were all out of the good, uh, you call it, creamer? So, I don’t know how this is going to taste.” Xavier plunks down a fresh coffee, and then takes up all of the space next to Seb. He looks up at Scarlett, now flipping through the pages, and then directly at Chris. “What are we all standing around for?”

The moment breaks, and the universe around him reels back to life.

“The first review for Seb’s new movie came out,” Scarlett sings, legs bouncing as she half-heartedly dances and flips through the pages. “Oh shit, here we go. Shut up, guys.”

Beside him, Mackie and Paul immediately cut themselves off.

“Blah blah blah,” Scarlett murmurs, eyes tracing feverishly back and forth on the page, looking for a line that includes Seb. She breaks out into a grin and makes an excited noise. “The lively and lurid film has solid commercial legs under it and marks a rebound for Gillespie.”

Everyone breaks out into cheers, happy sounds; Seb laughs again and covers his face.

“The skater's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly,” Scarlett makes her voice louder, flicks her gaze off the page to make eye contact with Seb over the top of it, “ _Sebastian Stan_ , endearingly stupid and embarrassed of his infamy-”

Beside him, Mackie crows, “Just like Chris!”

Chris feels himself react, taking the hit with a laugh as Mackie claps him on the back. 

He can’t catch his breath. Seb is still groaning and making embarrassed faces and laughing and trying to charm Scarlett into stopping, but Xavier is looking at Chris. Chris suddenly realizes that he’s being judged. Clarity breaks over his head like a piece of glass.

Itchy, now, Chris turns, and looks at Mackie.

“I’ll be back,” he says, trying not to visibly twitch. “I need to drop my bag off.”

“Sure, man.” Mackie claps him on the shoulder again and lets him go.

*

Chris sets his bag on the two-seater couch in his trailer, and flops down next to it.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself. He rubs both hands over his face.

He doesn’t like this feeling very much. Sore, bruised, Chris rubs at his chest and sits there quietly. He ends up cringing, his whole face crinkling up, as he stares down at the floorboard beneath the kitchenette. Whatever this is - this achy, trembling feeling inside - it lingers.

And then it blooms like a rose.

In the end, he thinks, things will work out. They’ve always worked out, for him, for them. When Chris thinks about his life, Seb is in it. It’s always Sebastian.

Chris’s phone buzzes. It’s a text from Jenny.

He skims it quickly - _I just saw a BIRED EAT A HOTDOG_ \- and then flips his phone over, leaving it screen down on the table.

The last ten years of his life, they’ve all been punctuated with Seb. Maybe in fits and starts - they haven’t always figured things out - but they’ve always come back to the same place, like a rolling bicycle wheel. All points touch the ground, and then you’re back to the beginning, but somehow you’ve moved ahead.

He and Seb, they’ve always moved ahead together.

*

This new Cap suit is stiff, still too new to be comfortable.

Chris tries to pull the back strap out of his ass as he walks towards the break tent. Today has been all hurry up and wait. He’s shot exactly two scenes so far, both of which were with a green screen, and a tennis ball on a tall stick.

He smiles - brief, mouth closed - at a PA as they pass one another outside craft services.

In the belly of the tent, there are four overstuffed leather couches: the kind that every one of Chris’s college friends had before getting married. Scarlett is on one, and Hemsworth is stretched out and dead asleep on another.

Seb and his friend are on the third, together, their backs to Chris. It’s a strange way to see two people. When Chris realizes what he’s looking at, his gut drops, and he moves over to the craft services table, trying to buy himself a minute, trying to judge the situation. His plans are foiled when Scarlett catches his eye and waves him over.

There’s that clammy feeling again.

“Hey,” he manages, trying not to fumble.

Scarlett smiles first, and then when Seb hears his Cap boot covers scuffing at the dirt floor, he tilts his head back and offers up a smile, too. Chris’s mouth jerks a small one in return.

“You done for the day?” Scarlett asks. She’s lounging, one foot dangling over her knee.

Chris edges around the side of the couch, and warily takes a peek. Xavier is on his phone, not paying attention to Chris, but firmly wedged between the back of Seb’s shoulder and the couch.

“Uh, almost.” He scratches the hair on the back of his head. He’s greasy, sweaty; he’s been running between two marks taped on the floor for almost three hours. Seb smiles at him kindly, the corners of his lips curving up. “How about… how about you guys?”

Scarlett snorts.

“I have no idea,” she says, tilting her head back, strange blonde wig hair curling against the arm of the couch as she looks around. “I’m waiting for someone to tell me.”

Seb laughs and shrugs and jokes, “That’s pretty much every day of my life.”

And just like that, Xavier snaps back to life. His face changes from the narrow-eyed, laser focus of someone typing on their phone, to something content. Happy. Suddenly he’s present, and everything else in the room begins to gravitate in his direction.

Then he stretches, and makes a sleepy noise, and flops the back of his free hand against the front of Seb’s chest.

Chris blacks out for a second.

“Do you know if they’re serving dinner yet?” Scarlett asks. She doesn’t notice the way Xavier loops one of his fingers into Bucky’s chest straps, and then tilts his head back to say something against Seb’s ear. “I can’t eat any more tuna salad. I won’t.”

She starts to kick her foot restlessly, trying to get close enough to Chris to catch his thigh - his attention - but he’s standing too far away for her to make contact.

“Try eating five thousand calories a day!” Seb jokes, and it’s normal - it’s Seb - but then the switch flips again, and he smiles, and he isn’t looking at Chris. He isn’t looking at Chris. He turns his face into the side of Xavier’s head, and murmurs something back, and his voice is so low, conversation so intimate, that Chris can’t make it out.

Chris knows he’s staring, but he can’t-

“Don’t tease me, Stan,” Scarlett groans.

He can’t- does anyone else see this?!

“Ohh, heyyy! Choupette, I believe your supper has arrived.” Chris watches, horrified, as Xavier grins with his whole face - and what the fuck is _that_ , what does _shoepet_ mean - and then stretches one arm out in reach of Scarlett. He pouts his lips and begs, “Bring me back a water, if you please.”

That’s when Chris realizes Scarlett is getting off the couch.

Scarlett is leaving.

“I’ll come,” he blurts. “I’ll come with you.”

Chris high-tails it after her, trying his best not to spare a glance back.

He doesn’t have the guts.

*

See, it’s not that easy.

Chris is stewing. He knows he is. He can feel where it starts - there is nothing inside that isn’t poking at the memory of Seb on that couch. It’s a bruise, a compulsion. Every time they call for a reset and Chris plunks himself down in his non-director director’s chair, he sees it.

Robert isn’t helping.

“I’ve been trying to talk to that guy for _years_ ,” Robert is saying, going on and on and not realizing that Chris hasn’t said a word back. “I heard he was a dick, and I mean, I’m a dick, so I get that - creative types are notoriously difficult - but he’s a charming dick, huh?”

Chris doesn’t reply.

“I think I like him,” Robert continues. “He’s a smart kid.”

And then Chris just can’t bite it back anymore. It trips out of him before he can squish it, the vitriol and the acidity.

“He’s not a kid,” he crabs. “He’s an adult. He just looks like a kid.”

He’s short.

When Robert doesn’t answer right away - because Robert always answers, always has something to say to everything, no matter how mundane, and god, Chris respected that about a person, how he could just open his mouth and _speak_ \- Chris turns to look.

Robert’s staring at him.

“I…” he trails off and then laughs, making Chris feel worse. “I am not touching that with a ten foot pole. Good _god_ , Evans. Get it together.”

Like it’s even that hard to be a director. Chris has directed shit, too, but you didn’t see people calling him a genius. He’s _Captain America_. Maybe if he wasn’t he could have been himself and liked gay memes on Twitter and directed artsy movies, but he _is_ and that’s what got given to him.

He grimaces and shakes his head.

“I don’t care.” It’s a lie. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

That’s not.

*

He tries not to drink too much on nights where he knows he’s shooting the next day.

Usually it isn’t worth it - not even an application of Steve Rogers contour can remedy the water retention when he does - but when he gets dropped off that night, a beer is the only thing on his mind.

Well, not the only thing.

Chris is still twitchy with frustration when he gets through the front door. The dog comes to greet him, he always does, no matter what, even when Chris comes back after three months away, and Chris finds himself trembling, hands shaking as he tries to pet Dodger and take his shoes off at the same time.

“Hi pal,” he says quietly, throat tight. “Hi bud.”

In the kitchen, things are clearer. For a second, things make sense. Chris tugs the fridge door open, and the only things inside are still just a six pack of beer and the unopened thing of cheese strings Jenny said she required last time they were at Target together. 

He blinks, and his throat gets tighter, and so he takes a beer and closes the door and seals the chill back inside.

When he turns around, Jenny is in the doorway. She’s stoned, Chris can see it, and she looks sad, too, and for one second Chris wants to shove everything off of the kitchen counter and scream _what are we doing here_ because he knows there’s somebody out there that Jenny must love the same way he loves Seb, and-

“I found a video, and I need you to watch it.” She looks at him seriously, a little bit wobbly, and Chris gets weak, he gets helpless, at how hopeless it is. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but it does have a duck and a large dog who are very good friends.”

Chris realizes his mouth is shaking. He blinks and squeezes his beer bottle and clears his throat, and she must see something in his face, too, because all of a sudden they’re staring at each other like they’re meeting for the first time.

“Kiss me,” Chris chokes out. The words crack and break and maybe he can have this.

Jenny’s eyes widen, surprised, and she stops, chin dipping back against her throat.

“Wait,” she says slowly, and then squints. “What?”

He lets go of the bottle and all of a sudden he’s out of breath. He feels like he’s been running, and he can’t catch his breath, chest so fatigued with the weight of having to hold up all these feelings he keeps buried for Sebastian.

“I just-” now he’s crying, and he knows he’s crying, and he must look crazy. “I need-”

Then Jenny is there, and she’s smaller than him the same way that Xavier is smaller than him, but she couldn’t hold him up. Chris knows that Jenny needs someone to hold her up in the same way, and two broken buildings leaning on each other have nowhere to go but down.

“Hold on, I- what?” Jenny’s hands are on his face, thumbs wiping away the tears on his cheeks, and Chris realizes he’s hyperventilating, clutching onto the counter, dog tangled around his heels. 

Chris tugs at the front of his shirt, he’s got to get out of here, he’s hot and cold at the same time and the only thing that he can see is the way Seb looked, how that smirk deepend into a smile and then all of a sudden he was the most beautiful thing in the room.

“I can’t,” Chris gets out, choking, and then really starts to cry when Jenny kisses him on the mouth, lips closed.

She holds his face and lets him get frustrated and kisses him on the cheek again and again.

“You can,” she promises, but she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

*

The next day, Chris books an emergency video call with his therapist.

She’s been there when other people haven’t. She’s the woman his mother set him up with after he had his first panic attack at 23. He trusts her implicitly.

But he doesn’t always take her advice.

“He’s just a little shit,” Chris bitches, eyebrows pulling together. He knows his voice is getting all tight and pitchy but he doesn’t know how to stop it. “I don’t know what Seb sees in him.”

His therapist looks at his face.

“Have you asked him?” But it’s not that easy - she doesn’t know-

Chris looks away from the screen. “No. We don’t talk much.”

“You two seemed close over the summer.” She briefly looks away, long enough to scratch something down in her notes, before she’s zoning in on Chris again. “It sounds like maybe you had some plans that didn’t work out?”

His cheeks get hot.

“We had some plans.” Now his mouth is shaking. He hides it by resting his face in his hand, thumb and pointer finger pressed to his cheekbones, but that makes the sudden tears in his eyes obvious. “Sorry.”

Back in Boston, his therapist gives him a small, warm smile.

“Take your time,” she says softly.

Chris looks at himself in the little rectangle in the corner of the screen, because that’s easier than watching her be kind. His cheeks are flushed red, nostrils flaring. He’s trying very hard not to cry.

“I just-” He cuts himself off when his voice breaks. “No. Things didn’t work out.”

She nods. When he doesn’t elaborate, she says, “Tell me about your plans.”

“Oh.” Chris laughs, big and loud and snotty. “Well, uh. They weren’t- they aren’t. I.”

When it becomes obvious that he is crippled, that he doesn’t know how to continue without her holding his hand, she prompts, “How did your plans include Sebastian?”

“My plans…” Chris trails off. Bulletproof. That’s how he felt, he thinks. Bulletproof, and more lonely than he had ever been before. Sebastian was the cause of one, and the remedy for the other. He smiles, softly, at the memory. “He’s the first person who ever made me think about settling down.”

His therapist raises her eyebrows - he’s genuinely surprised her, he thinks - and says, “Wow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, jeez, Seb.” He knots his eyebrows again, thinking back, and shakes his head, lost in his own thoughts. “He makes me smile, you know?”

She nods. “You’ve always spoken very highly of Sebastian.”

“I do. Yeah.” He rubs his fingers over his mouth, his bare chin. “I let go of him.”

There she goes, scratching another note. She doesn’t look up. Just asks, “How?”

“I don’t know.” He rubs at his chest, breathless. “I just did.”

*

The next morning, Chris feels hungover.

“You look like shit,” Scarlett tells him from her wig chair.

He sits down next to her, in his. The chair mechanics clunk under his weight. 

On the lit mirror in front of him, a series of Polaroids featuring his own face in full hair and makeup stare back. Along the top of the mirror, Sebastian’s.

“Thanks.” He didn’t drink last night. “Just tired.”

It’s hard to concentrate on his own reflection with the Polaroids right there. There they are: the guys they were before Chris left for South Africa. He remembers that day, they got their final makeup and wardrobe. It was February. They flirted the whole time.

He closes his eyes, sore.

*

His heavy head becomes harder and harder to shoulder throughout the day.

By lunchtime, he’s fidgety with nervous energy. He eats by himself in his trailer and thinks about - and about and about and about - going to talk to Seb. Chris knows he’s on set today even though they don’t have any scenes together.

“Alright,” he announces to absolutely no one. He determinedly wedges his feet into his set slippers, and heads out.

Sebastian’s on-set proximity has always been a comfort. 

In the early days - a whole decade under the influence - they’d joked about it a lot. Mandatory fun, Hayley called it, and god, they used to blush and smile, didn’t they, when circumstance pushed them together like plastic dolls.

They were two kids, and, somehow, they always ended up shoulder to shoulder. In the booth at the bar on crew nights, on the hotel couch while they watched movies, on-set in a golf cart and hurtling through the English countryside.

Whenever Chris missed him too much, there was always another movie to look forward to.

He bounces up the metal steps hanging off Sebastian’s trailer, and unclicks the door handle.

“It’s me.” His memory feeds him a thousand other days just like this: 29 and nervous, wanting to go over lines. 32 and bored, a couple of movies in hand for an especially slow shooting day in Cleveland. 34 and full of that loving feeling. “Are you in here?”

Xavier is sitting on the kitchen counter directly across from the door.

He sees Chris and smiles.

“Uh.” Chris freezes with one hand still on the door. “Sorry. I… should have knocked.”

There’s a plate of food from craft services sitting on the countertop beside Xavier’s thigh. Chris knows it’s from craft services, because he ate the same chicken and veggies for lunch.

“Faites comme chez toi même,” Xavier replies, eyebrows knotting very seriously as he glances down, picks up a piece of broccoli, and pops it in his mouth. As he chews, he looks at Chris quizzically - like they’ve never met before - and asks, “What brings you?”

Chris’s mouth opens and then closes. “I…” Thought you would be gone already. Wasn’t expecting to see you here today. “Sorry. I don’t think we’ve really been introduced.”

He steps forward with one hand outstretched - a white flag - and arranges his face into something that feels a lot like Steve Rogers.

The expression falters when Xavier simply looks at him from under his eyelashes, and leans back an inch. Just enough to stretch his leg out and stop Chris from coming any closer. He presses his pointed, socked toes to the star on the front of Cap’s uniform.

“Chris Evans,” Xavier announces, voice dripping with his French-Canadian accent. “Your gigantic boobs look even better from up close.”

Then he slouches forward, and shakes Chris’s hand.

Chris squeezes back. His hands are - they’re big, surprisingly big, for such a short guy. He looks up into Xavier’s face, because he’s right there, and Xavier is looking back, and he’s looking close, Chris realizes. He’s studying Chris the same way Chris is studying him.

“Robert, uh. Had a lot of nice things to say about you,” he offers.

It’s an olive branch, a third-party for Chris to lean on in lieu of offering his own compliment.

Xavier knows it, too. He smirks back and counters, “I do love Iron Man.”

“Right.” Then he realizes Xavier is joking, so he laughs. It’s more of a desperate huff than anything - because this is weird, it’s weird, right? - and then he rubs his boob. “Is Seb… is he around?”

Xavier tugs his earring between two fingers and shrugs.

“Somewhere.” His bottom lip pouts. “Not sure where.”

Well, fuck. Chris nods, and then can’t figure out how to elegantly remove himself from the situation, so he says, “Well, that’s, uh. Cool. You’re, you know. Here. Nice to see him have the support.”

“Oh, I’m very supportive.” There’s that smirk again. Xavier is tracking Chris closely, eyes hot auburn as he watches. “There’s a lot of Sébastien to support.”

Chris doesn’t get it until Xavier pushes his tongue into the inside of his cheek a couple times.

“I-” Am in over my head. “That’s… great. That’s great. I know he’s had a rough year.”

Fuck. Chris abruptly shuts himself up. That slipped out. He doesn’t know how much Xavier is privy to, he can’t imagine Seb would have gone into everything they’ve-

Then Xavier’s expression gets carnivorous.

“Well.” Xavier’s eyes flicker over Chris’s face. “Mostly just the second half.”

That was definitely the wrong thing to say. 

Chris nods and babbles, “Yeah! Looks like it’s picking up, right?”

“You bet.” Xavier gives him a shit-eating grin. “Lots of things to do, people to see. His script is very good.”

Now that...

“His script?” Chris asks.

Xavier shrugs. “To be announced, maybe, in 2018.”

“Right. And you… you’re helping with that?”

Seb is writing a script?

“Just a fan,” Xavier promises. Then he smiles and lifts one shoulder. “For now.”

Surprised, Chris stares for a second, and then gets his feet on the ground and manages, “Alright, well. I gotta… get back. Just. Let him know I stopped by?”

“Of course.” Xavier says. “Salut, Capitaine!”

*

_> Hi we need to talk._

_> > Okay._

*

Chris checks his phone again.

It’s been an hour, and he’s climbing the walls. Jesus. He’s never had the nerve to send Seb a message like that before. Straightforward, to the point. A little rude.

There’s a knock on the door.

Nervous, Chris bounces up from his kitchenette table, and crosses the length of the trailer in four strides. The only people who knock on his door are Production Assistants, and sometimes Scarlett when she thinks he might be jerking off.

Chris unclicks the handle, and presses the door open.

“Hi.” It’s Seb. Chris immediately feels bad for himself.

He’s in full Bucky wardrobe - wig and everything - and he’s standing flat on the ground so he doesn’t take a door edge to the face. 

“Hey, uh, hey.” He fidgets. “Can I… come in?”

Chris unfreezes. The bend in his elbow flexes again.

“Yeah, of course.” He pushes the door and steps to the side, watching the top of Seb’s head - and his extremely hard Bucky part - as he climbs the stairs. “Come in.” Chris has to say something when Seb’s shoulder brushes his chest. “I didn’t think you would come over.”

Before Chris closes the door, he peeks left and right.

“Of course I would.” The door latch clicks conclusively, like a punctuation mark.

The part of Chris that wanted to pick a fight after that run in with Xavier wilts in his chest. He watches as Seb looks around, running his hand over this and that. It’s been a while since he’s been in here, Chris realizes. That ebb and flow of memory.

Seb has always been the sweetest surprise of Chris’s life.

“I just wanted to say, in person, I found out today-” Chris watches, confused, as Seb smiles at him, kind- “I mean, I don’t know if it’s like, official, or whatever-” He tightens his eyebrows, no idea where Seb is going with this. “I’m just, I’m happy, to hear about you and Jenny.”

Oh.

“Jenny?” Jenny? He- and Jenny? “Thanks, uh. I… you know. She’s great. She’s really great.”

She stood in the kitchen and kissed his face and let him cry everywhere, and she wiped his tears away with her thumbs and promised him it would be alright-

“I’d love to meet her. If that’s okay- I mean...” Chris has to shake himself out of the memory, and back into his shoes. It all feels so unnatural. In all the things they’ve experienced together, they’ve never done this. “If you’re okay with me meeting her, of course.”

Chris reels back to life.

“Yeah!!” Overcompensating. “Yeah.” Better. “Uh. She, I think she said she wants to meet you, too. Big Bucky fan.” He laughs awkwardly, and Seb half-smiles. “You, well, I think… I think you’d like her.” He might. “She’s living with me.” Fuck. “Just temporarily! She’s down here working. Like us.”

He didn’t mean to put that look on Seb’s face and he very quickly realizes he would do anything to make it go away.

“She’s living with you?” Seb’s voice is strained. He takes a deep breath, and offers another small, pained smile. “That’s pretty official then, huh?”

His smile loses half of its strings and then it’s lopsided and sad.

“Oh, no.” Chris’s eyebrows knot together. “No. It’s… I’m just doing her a favor.” This is the same thing he told his mother. “It’s not- we’re not. It isn’t like that.” It isn’t like that, Seb, I swear. “She’s working. I… that house. It’s big, and, uh, now I’m going to Boston for Christmas instead of staying here, and. You know. I had the room and… she’s working. So.”

Seb puts his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, of course. It’s a great house.”

“It is a great house.” Chris smiles, but then it fades. He remembers this conversation. He remembers cackling IT’S A GREAT HOUSE, SEB! from 8,000 miles away. He remembers the look on Seb’s face. Peaceful. Chris’s stomach hurts. He’s so sorry for everything. “Listen, that text. I didn’t mean to sound so… aggressive. You know- I’m not-” I’m not that person. I’m not him. I’m all fucked up, Seb. “I got ahead of myself.”

For a split second, they fall back into that thing they’ve always done. Chris feels it. Seb’s expression gets big, his eyebrows raise and his eyes get huge and he opens his mouth. He tries real hard to make Chris feel-

“No, Chris, it’s okay.” His voice is gentle like he knows how easily Chris spooks - and he does, Chris thinks, bitterly - he knows more than anyone. “We haven’t really, you know. Talked. In a while.”

Chris frowns and rubs his face. “Yeah.”

“What… what did you want to talk about?”

Jesus, Chris thinks. Jesus, what a question. He doesn’t know where to start. There’s so much - there are so many things - that Chris never… he never-

“Uh.” This spotlight is hot, and all-consuming. “Well, I just… was surprised. I didn’t…”

Seb lets him trail off. He lets him pull off the conversational highway, and it isn’t until Chris is very firmly, definitely, not about to continue, that he asks, “Is this about Xavier?”

“Xavier.” There goes the windshield. Chris nods. “Yes.”

He rubs at the aching lump in his chest, and watches as Sebastian’s expression changes.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to properly introduce you two.” And there’s that smile, the one Chris thinks he sees everywhere, even though it never is. All of a sudden, though, there he is - Sebastian Stan - and for the first time, Chris is frightened when he realizes there’s no replacing that. “He said you ran out before he was able to really say hey.”

Chris chokes out a laugh - Seb! You’re so funny, Seb - and manages a weak, “Yeah.”

“Anyway, then he kind of got, uh…” He watches as Seb runs a hand through his beard, looking bashful, lost in thought. Chris’s brain is cruel. It imagines Xavier’s fingers scratching through it, too. “He kinda ended up getting absorbed immediately, by everyone. I think Robert is about to ask if he can adopt him.”

Then he cracks into a laugh, and it’s joyous.

All Chris hears is _Xavier_ and _salut Capitaine_ and _Robert_ and _it’s a great house._

He realizes his mouth is open, so he closes it.

“Robert?” Robert, Robert? “I didn’t know they met. When did they meet?”

Seb is scratching at the peeling seam of an old warning sticker on the edge of the tiny, chronically unused oven. 

“Oh.” He looks over with a smile. “This afternoon, once Robert was done with his setups.”

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Chris offers up a helpful, “Ah.”

“Xavier and I are on our way over there to have dinner with him and Susan.”

_Susan._

“I, wow. Well, that’s… that’s great, Seb.” Chris introduced RDJ to Jenny for the first time in the middle of a bar in downtown ATL. He and Susan left twenty minutes later. “So you’re-” This hurts. “That’s- you’re together? Like that?”

Seb stops scratching at the sticker, and looks directly at Chris. “Like what?”

“Like…” Chris laughs because the emotion has to come out somehow. “Going to dinner with Robert together, together.”

He doesn’t realize what he’s said until Seb counters with, “You and I went and had dinner with Robert. You mean that kind of together?”

_You guys are just a couple of kids! Jesus! Look at you! Look at those smiles. Disgusting._

“You and I, we were together, Chris.” Seb isn’t letting him off the hook. “You do know that.”

Chris runs both hands over his face, and leans back against the edge of the couch.

“I-yeah.” His voice cracks. “I do. I know that, Seb.”

They watch each other for a long time, Seb hurt, Chris exhausted.

“Then we weren’t together,” Seb recounts, and god, he doesn’t have to say it - Chris knows it - that’s what makes it hurt, and- “And then we were together again, and then we weren’t together!” His face is all flushed, but he’s almost laughing as he says, “You can at least admit that now, to me, that what we had was real. Right?”

Right?

“I couldn’t… I didn’t-” Chris feels frustrated with himself. “I never meant to… Seb. Of course. Of course I did. Of course we were.”

Seb’s eyes are a little bit wet, frustrated. He looks at Chris and asks, “We were what?”

“You were-” Fumbling, Chris grimaces at himself and corrects, “You _are_ \- important to me, and, and, we were…” You can do this. “Together.” He sags. “We were together, and I loved you a lot.”

I loved you almost enough.

He watches, sad, as Seb laughs quietly, and then shakes his head. Bewildered.

“Wow. You know, that’s only the third time you’ve actually said that to me?”

Chris frowns. “You know I love you, Seb. Come on.”

“Do I?” He says it sarcastic, like it’s a joke, but Chris knows it isn’t.

That’s why it takes him a minute to respond, “Well, I thought you did.”

“I believed you did,” Seb agrees. “Maybe you thought you did, too. But now… god, Chris, I wonder if what you thought was loving me was actually-” He cuts himself off before he can finish his thought, and instead asks, “What’s my mom’s name?”

Chris, surprised, blurts, “Your mom?”

“I mean, I know your mom’s name. It’s Lisa. I know your brother’s name. It’s Scott.” There’s that sinking feeling again. Chris frowns, uncomfortable, and crosses his arms over his chest. Defensive. “I know your sisters’ names, I know what you guys do for Christmas every year, I know how old you were when your dad left your mom, and how your favorite place in the whole world is her kitchen.” He stops, pained, and then pauses before he asks, “Do you know anything like that about me?”

The question hangs in the air. Chris is misty-eyed with frustration.

“Just because I don’t know these things,” he starts, but then he cuts himself off, because his voice cracks. “This feels like a test, and I don’t-”

Seb snorts.

“It’s not a test.” His voice is flat, dry. “I know you don’t know the answers, so why would I test you on it?”

Frowning, Chris looks at the ground, because he can’t look at that expression on Seb’s face, not anymore, and mutters, “That’s not fair.”

“Say something.” Now Seb sounds desperate too. “Just tell me anything about me. Something unique.”

Chris blinks and shakes his head. He can feel the frustrated tears in his eyes.

“You liked that script I showed you,” he says, finally. His voice is rough. He looks up, gaze narrow, hurt, and focuses it on Sebastian. Maybe he is grasping at straws, but here he is, and at least he’s got one in each hand. “And Linklater. You love Linklater movies, Seb. We marathoned them.”

Seb looks at him carefully, thinking but not speaking.

“Yeah.” Chris isn’t expecting the casual indifference in his voice. “You told me how much you loved them, and I said I liked them, too. Then we watched them.”

Wait, isn’t that a good thing? “We had fun.”

“We did have fun. We had a lot of fun together, and I think maybe it would have been different if that had been it.” He crosses his arms over his chest, thinking, and bites his lip. “What you did to me, Chris… That was so… I couldn’t even… You just levelled me. Destroyed me, almost.”

Chris can’t look anywhere but straight ahead.

“I didn’t…” he swallows, voice rough. “That wasn’t on purpose. I had a bad month. I didn’t- you never. I didn’t know what else to do.”

He knows it’s a lame excuse, even as he says it. Seb does, too.

“What else to do?” He laughs, flabbergasted. “What, besides ignore me?”

Chris’s expression tightens. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was- I went home.”

“Does your phone not work in Boston?”

It’s not that easy, Chris thinks, disoriented. “I got busy, and - and, everything with Blake - and then this, and… you know what?” He feels a puff of frustration in his chest. “This hasn’t been easy for me either, you know. I go, and, and I come back, and then…” Here he is, trailing off again, not able to complete a whole thought with Seb _looking at him_ like that- “This whole thing with Xavier. You’re not the only one who feels bad. I got hurt, too.”

Seb watches him, jaw tightening, cheekbone twitching.

“You were going to come to New York.” His voice is steady, serious. “You said that. You were going to fly into JFK, and come to my place. We were going to be together.”

He feels himself begin to drown, and pleads, “Seb,” desperate for a hand out.

“You were going to be there, in my bed, with me. Not just on the phone.” Seb raises his eyebrows, and asks, “Do you remember saying that to me?”

_> Hey, two more days. Can you believe it?_

_> > Nope. I can’t wait to see you, though._

_> Me either. I miss you. And I’ll be there soon._

Chris wipes his eyes, upset. It’s not so easy to push these things down with Seb standing right there, like that, ripping the bandaid off of each and every memory Chris has worked so hard to hide.

“You didn’t- of course I remember.” His voice is rougher than he thought it would be, choked up and sad. “I get out of bed in the morning, and it’s the same bed I saw in the pictures when I rented the house.” _Think that’ll be big enough for both of us?_ “I think about you then, and I think about you when I go to sleep, too.” _Hey, I’m happy to squeeze._ “I think about all the stupid shit I said I was going to do, because I meant it, and I wasn’t lying, and I remember it.” _I can’t wait to see you_. “I had my return ticket, and I changed it. From New York to Boston, the night before I left.”

He watches Seb’s expression change: a deep hurt, pain thorough, abrupt. Chris jerks back like he threw a punch and landed it.

“What?” Seb asks, lost. “Why?”

Chris bites his lip to try and stop it from shaking. There are tears in his eyes.

“I just needed to go home. Okay?” The cat’s out of the bag. He brings one hand up to wipe his cheek off. “I had a bad day, and I had to go home, and that’s why I did it.”

It takes a few shaky breaths before Seb manages a soft, “Oh, Chris.” His eyes are wide and wet.

“Yeah. Well.” Now Chris is uncomfortable. That’s the most he’s said to anyone about anything in months. The loss of owning it alone stings. “Now you know.”

The corner of Seb’s mouth lifts up into a half-smile, trying to be supportive.

“Now I know,” he agrees.

*

Chris is frightened.

It takes no time at all for Seb to unravel himself. Chris - he - he still feels stuck, attached to this conversation and Sebastian in a way he can’t shake off. Sometimes he feels like he’s standing so close, he can’t even see what’s going on.

It’s been ten years and he still never expects it when Seb leaves.

They offer platitudes - _are you okay?_ \- and then Seb smiles big and like moonlight, bright enough to stop Chris dead in his tracks - _yeah, I am_ \- pure joy, and that’s what feeds the terror that begins to boil low and steady in Chris’s gut.

He watches as Seb hesitates before stepping closer. Chris is standing still, he’s lost the plot, when Seb leans in and presses a chaste - ultimately familiar - kiss to Chris’s mouth.

And then it’s over.

Seb leaves, and there’s Chris. Stuck in the web - sticky, paralyzed - with nothing to do but watch as the trailer door clicks shut behind the loss of him.

He puts a hole in the vinyl wall shortly after.

*

Jenny is having a bad night, too.

On the other side of the door, Dodger waits for him in front of a panorama of slouchy yellow hats and small, strange prints. The couch and table are littered with knit fabrics and upended shopping bags.

Chris pauses, and sets his house keys down.

As he’s staring - taking it all in - Jenny comes back through the patio doors.

“Oh!” They look at each other. Her eyes are glazed, stoned. “Hey. Guess what?”

He looks around, and thinks about it. He thinks about landing at JFK, and getting into a cab, and the nervous way he’d knock on Seb’s door for the very first time. Maybe it would crack open, maybe Seb would tease him, and then laugh and pull him inside. They’d kiss and Chris would have known he did the right thing.

He would have known. Because,

Then it’s Seb on the couch - right there - and they’re watching movies, and maybe earlier tonight, they ate dinner outside. Atlanta is beautiful in fall. The leaves remind Chris of New Hampshire, and man, Seb, we should go there next year.

Jenny is watching him, waiting for an answer. She’s wearing a shirt as a dress, and clutching her bong in one hand.

And that-

“What?” He falls into the couch, on top of all her purchases.

The plastic crinkles, and Chris reaches under himself to yank out a particularly sharp bag.

“I may or may not have organized multiple outfits around one specific turtleneck that is probably the love of my life,” she explains. “Would you like to watch a fashion show?”

Something hits the ground as Chris stretches a leg out.

“Yeah.” He accepts the bong when Jenny holds it out for him to take. “That’s exactly what I want to see.”

Behind her, through the kitchen doorway, he sees Seb for a split second. It’s a glimpse, a moment, two universes crashing into each other and intersecting just long enough for Chris to see that somewhere, someplace else, they figured it out.

Seb looks at him, and smiles.

“I have a number of hats,” Jenny announces, digging around in a bag. She pauses to reach up and wipe off her cheeks with both hands. Chris sits up and holds the bong between his knees because he thinks he might be crying, too. “Would you like to see something in a nice fall burgundy?”

“Yeah.” Chris’s voice is like gravel. “That’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chris’s sad winter boner mix
> 
> * human nature - madonna  
> * road - portishead  
> * i get around - 2pac  
> * how to disappear completely - radiohead  
> * finally - cece peniston  
> * lung - vancouver sleep clinic  
> * pass this on - the knife  
> * i forgive yiew - miley cyrus  
> * bette davis eyes - kim carnes  
> * family tree - tv on the radio  
> * daddy’s gone - glasvegas
> 
> *
> 
>  _Faites comme chez toi même_ = Make yourself at home/my home is your home
> 
> *
> 
> So that’s it!!! 
> 
> Thanks to Genie for being a bomb ass bitch and amazing co-collaborator. We basically became possessed and wrote the majority of these stories in a two week period over the holidays, which was a crazy/fun whirlwind of creativity and collaboration.
> 
> If you haven’t read [The Death and Life of Sebastian Stan](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13234761), DO IT. I mean, or don’t, but I really think you should!! It’s fun and I wrote the dirtiest bone of my life for it.
> 
> As always, [I’ll be hanging out on tumblr](http://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com) if you wanna share your thoughts or ask some questions :)


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